


Stay Awake With Me

by Blanquette



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bittersweet, Character Death, Hand Jobs, Human/Vampire Relationship, Light Angst, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Musicians, Punk, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Vampire Bites, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: There's a little god up on the stage, singing in a broken voice, syncopated gestures bending his body. Hyungwon stares, entranced, and in his eyes that reflect no light, something starts burning.





	Stay Awake With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my draft forever and I finally got around to finish it.
> 
> I guess it's a lot darker than what I usually write but I don't think it's that sad, either. Bittersweet, I guess? Anyway, I hope you'll like it, it's a bit different.

**1.**

The wave of pure noise that hits him as he enters the bar is almost solid. Hyungwon recoils, blinded, as someone pushes past him to plunge into the moving mass of bodies rippling in front of them. The crowd parts, swallowing the kid like a beast, a smooth motion that leaves no trace. It’s warm here, too warm, the ground sticky with spilled beer and something else, too, something Hyungwon would rather not place. A strange den of darkness and noise where it seems he’s not the only monster dwelling.

There’s a scream, and it’s only then that Hyungwon looks up, to the stage crammed against the far wall, almost leveled with the audience. The scream comes from a body writhing there, something pale and lanky, jerking motions and a smoky voice barely heard over the wall of sound pulsing behind it. There’s something mesmerizing there, an energy pulling everything in, and the beast follows its prey’s every move, every scream and every gesture mirrored by dozens of faces, dozens of feet stomping and pushing. Hyungwon stares, enraptured. Each pound of the drum and again a heart beats against his ribs, each strum of the guitars and blood flows through his frozen veins, and the voice, the voice echoing in his brain, awaking what lies there.

And then, the singer falls. The crowd parts with excited cheers as Hyungwon swims through the bodies to the fallen one and he’s still singing, he’s still screaming, body twitching in spilled beer and broken glass; there’s a gash on his arm and blood on his forehead but he’s still singing. And Hyungwon stares, stares at the blood and it’s sick, sick, sick, something acrid and corrupt behind the familiar metallic smell he’s learned to love. He knows track marks when he sees them, he knows the feverish eyes and he knows the smell of hovering death and this is it, he thinks, the fascination; that something so alive can be so dead.

 

**2.**

Hyungwon comes back, and back again. He waits for nightfall to slip out of his empty apartment, and he used to hate it, the night. When life was stolen from him so was the sun, and there was no shelter for such a grief in the empty darkness that welcomed him. But he learned, in time, he learned to love it; he learned to find the beauty nesting there, in empty streets and fluorescent lights, in the people that made the night their home, just as he did. Unguarded, ephemeral, people fluttering in and out; candles at night, burning at both ends. 

He walks through deserted streets, two blocks and a couple of kids running past him, laughing, jackets falling down shoulders, bags jumping on hips, a shoelace untying. He follows them; there is only once place to go, here, at this time. A small building, barely holding up, shabby just like the people queuing outside and it’s always the same, the same faces and the same noises and the same beast coiling inside.

It’s always the same, but it’s always different, too.

The man onstage is a little god, admired and despised in turn, and Hyungwon watches, hovering at a table near the door; he watches, just as enraptured as everyone else, something wild and painful spilling in his being, something warm and alive, electricity at the tip of his fingers. The man sings and he jerks and he shudders; something inhabits him, a pulse not entirely his own he embodies through half-yelled growls, rough words sung on the epileptic throb of his limbs and it needs to get out, the audience soaking in the sound, the yells and the pain. It’s like feeding, warm and sticky, a snake slithering down his throat and nesting in his insides. It’s like feeding and it is, the man onstage flayed raw, everyone taking a piece of him as he drowns in the blasting noise.

But Hyungwon isn’t satiated, he never is. He’s hungrier still, skin burning, an acid taste in his mouth. It is easy, easier, even. He feels powerful, and everyone here is hungry, everyone is starving; and so he looks, and he smiles, and someone always comes. It’s a girl, this time, a small wobbly thing with pretty eyes; smudged eyeliner and too bright a lipstick. She smells of beer and she’s young, so young; too young for such a place and yet he smiles and he dances and he grazes her skin with the tip of burning fingers and when she shivers he takes her to a back-alley outside.

It’s another kind of escape she had hoped for, and yet she doesn’t struggle. Her flesh is tender, skin paper-thin. When his teeth sink in the first spurt of blood rips a grown from Hyungwon’s chest, the snake in his belly uncoiling and it’s sticky and warm in his throat and it’s life, it’s life and he can still hear the sound from the livehouse, he can still hear the man screaming, and when he closes his eyes as the girl goes limp it’s him that he thinks of, the man onstage, the little god, dead and alive and dead and alive.

 

**3.**

Hyungwon loses count. The nights melt into each other and it seems he’s always been here, that the place near the door has always been his, that this is where he shall be, now until forever, watching, trying to understand what this is, this primitive pulse; trying and failing. And then, one night, it changes. There is someone else up on the stage, another burning candle but this one isn’t as bright and Hyungwon’s eyes fall to the crowd, drinking and laughing, and something’s missing.

“You’re here a lot, aren’t you?”

The chair next to his scraps back as a body falls into it, chapped lips and eyes burning of a fabricated fever. Hyungwon stares and it’s still there, this magnetic pull; the man’s vibrating on another frequency altogether and Hyungwon wants to reach out and touch but maybe his hand will go through.

“I guess.”

A smile, too bright in this gloomy place, and the little god scoots closer, resting his chin on his hand. It is strange, seeing him here, within reach; too strange, as if he wasn’t supposed to be outside of this suspended time where nothing but him exists, there, up on the stage. And yet he’s centimeters away, licking his lips, leaning forward on scrawny elbows.

“So, what’s your story? No one knows you and suddenly you’re here every night. You like what we’re doing?”

“Would I be here if I did not?”

The man laughs; and there’s a mad edge to everything he does. Maybe he knows, Hyungwon thinks, maybe he knows there’s only one possible end for him here, rolling around in broken glass and spilled beer, death in his blood; _madness is the déjà-là of death_ , and Hyungwon can see the empty skull underneath the smiling face.

“Fair enough.”

He’s spilling on the table, too close for comfort and Hyungwon leans back in his chair, eyes going to the stage, to the band playing there, too loud guitars and the beat, incessant, something strumming that has him on edge, almost as much as the heart beating next to him.

“So, where are you staying?”

“Excuse me?”

“You look fancy, you have your own place, right?”

“What’s it to you?”

The man pouts, something defensive in his face that seems almost out of place. And it is, a game he plays well, a bid at getting what he wants.

“I mean, you’re always leaving with people anyway, right? Why not me? I got dumped so I need a place to crash.”

Hyungwon stares, and then, Hyungwon laughs. Something coming from deep in his belly, something that hadn’t happened in years.

“Man, it’s not that funny.”

“Is this what people do nowadays?”

“What do you mean?”

“You guys just go up to strangers and try to get into their house?”

“You’re not a stranger, you’re my groupie. I know you’re watching me. You’re hard to miss.”

Hyungwon swallows another laugh, brushing dark hair out of his eyes and the man stares, too intense, too intense in everything he does.

“So I should be a nice little groupie and offer you shelter.”

“Yeah, I mean, everyone else does it.”

“Then find someone else.”

“Damn, harsh.”

The man straightens up, edging away from Hyungwon like a wounded animal.

“I’ll not sing for you anymore.”

“You sing for me?”

A nod, and the mischief is back in the feverish eyes.

“Yeah. Each night I pick someone out of the crowd and I sing only for them. It makes it easier, somehow. I don’t know why. When you come in, it’s always you.”

The man stands before Hyungwon can say anything, disappearing into the crowd with a last nod. It’s like waking up from a dream, the details already fading; but the eyes remain, only the eyes.

 

**4.**

He picks a boy, this time, ashy blond and halfway gone; he takes his time, too, pushing him against a rough wall as he kisses him, slow and hungry, sharp nails drawing blood from the smooth skin of his hips. He swallows the boy’s groans just as he will swallow his blood, later, much later; now he kneels on the dirty ground, licking the red drops pearling on the abused skin and it tastes dark, sultry, something that clouds his mind and appeals to his hunger, this abyss within him that will never be filled. He draws pleasure from pushing his control, toeing the edge until he’s overwhelmed, mind drifting, and there is no other choice but to devour, devour the body writhing under his hands. 

 

**5.**

Hyungwon stops coming. It’s easier than he thought; when night falls and his eyes open he stays unmoving, eyes riveted to the ceiling, listening to silent breaths and an absent heart. And it’s fine, like this, it’s okay, he can almost pretend the echoes within his empty walls don’t bother him. He listens to the life outside of his apartment, to the night dwellers taking to the streets, laughs and car brakes and a swear, somewhere, a harsh voice with an edge of madness. As he stares moving shapes take form on the ceiling and he recognizes them soon enough. It’s easy to picture, it is, if he lets his mind drift he can see him, crawling on stage amidst vapors of smoke and alcohol, voice breaking over raw syllables. He can see him, too, smiling with his chin in his hand and maybe he should have said yes, maybe he should have, but years of loneliness aren’t so easy to break.

Hyungwon had felt his pulse, had listened to his heartbeat and to the blood coursing through his veins and yet this was a hunger he could not satiate, a hunger he didn’t want to fill – Hyungwon already knows the taste, acrid like ashes on his tongue and it is the taste of death, it is, though it is life that he craves. Still the man on stage had been life, too, intense and wild, something here an instant and gone the next, something Hyungwon didn’t know how to capture, something he didn’t know what to do with. Dead and alive and dead and alive.

He raises a hand, fingers spread, a white spider upon the ceiling and if he stares long enough he can see underneath the skin, to the frozen veins and the calcified bones, muscles that shouldn’t be able to move anymore, a body that should be dead, dead in the ground or ashes on the wind and yet it is alive, a strange kind of half-life stolen from others. Alive and empty, and if he looks to the room beyond the bed it’s like looking inside himself; empty floors and empty walls and an empty sort of existence he should let burn in the sun.

But there was something, in the night, if he followed the laughter and the yells, there was the pound of a drum beating against his ribs, a voice pushing fire in his veins, raw and true; feverish eyes and a mimicry of a life he’d lost too long ago to remember what it felt like. And so he knows, too, that he will find that place again, that he will push through the abyss to find what little light there is.

 

**6.**

“You looking for someone?”

Hyungwon looks up, to the guy leaning against the counter, a glass of a clear liquid in his hand, dark hair falling into his eyes.

“The guy who used to sing here.”

The man takes a sip of his drink, tilts his head with a half-smile, something knowing that has Hyungwon on edge.

“A lot of guys used to sing here.”

“You know the one. He fell down a lot.”

The man laughs, sloshing his drink in the direction of the far wall.

“Ah, Minhyuk. He’s drunk off his ass somewhere over here. Probably keeled over already.”

Hyungwon nods, pushing through the crowd until he reaches the far end of the room and the man at the counter wasn’t lying, the little god is here, half dead half alive, half alive half dead, spilling on a table, blank stare and mouth slack. Hyungwon sits opposite him, watches as the sleeve of the man’s shirt soaks up the alcohol spilled on the table, watches as he slowly blinks, eyes out of focus, rimmed with red.

“You hear me?”

A slow nod, a blink and a smile, the man pushing himself upward but he’s heavy, too heavy, and so he slumps back on the table, a giggle escaping his lips.

“I know… you. I know you.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Ah, sorry. I’m – I’m very tired.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.”

A nod, and the eyes close, the head lolls on the table and Hyungwon watches, watches the empty skull underneath the sleeping face.

It’s easy, to bring the man back. He’s weightless. Hyungwon feels his heart beat against his back as he steals him through empty streets, back, back to an empty place where he lays him down and watches, watches the hands and the face and the chest rise and fall. There’s something missing, something of the pull he had felt, something of the vast energy expanding on stage; here on the white sheets it’s just a body, thin and diseased, and yet. Yet he stares, stares until the night gives way, rays of sunshine beating him back into the dark recesses he built for himself.

 

**7.**

Minhyuk wakes and everything is white. Everything hurts, too, and for a split second he thinks that maybe, maybe that’s it. But the pain is too familiar, and the smell, too, the taste in his mouth. Old tobacco and too much alcohol, and he knows the sweat on his skin, the ache in his muscles; he knows them well, and so he rolls over, burying shaking hands under a heaving chest.

 

**8.**

When he wakes again everything is dark. There’s thick curtains drawn over the window, a sliver of light lining their edges. His mouth feels like cotton, skin prickling under an absent wind and his shirt sticks to his back with cold sweat and he knows this, he knows this. It will pass, eventually, and it will come again and pass again and he’ll be dead and alive and dead and alive.

He moves and there’s someone in the corner of the room, sitting, watching, and something strange happens then, an old primal fear that takes roots in the deep end of his guts as his breath freezes in his lungs. It’s a beast staring at him and yet when he pushes through the fog in his clouded mind it’s simply a man, seated cross-legged in an old arm chair, a book flipped over on his thigh.

“Who’re you?”

His voice sounds foreign even to his own ears, low and raspy and maybe he pushed it too far, this time.

“I brought you home.”

“Why are we in the dark?”

“Cause you’re sick.”

Minhyuk wants to laugh but it’s a cough that comes out and he struggles to sit up, draping the covers around him to keep the cold at bay.

“Not that kind of sickness. Got anything to eat?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? You got nothing?”

“I usually eat out.”

“Damn. Drink, then?”

“I have water.”

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

Minhyuk lets himself fall back on the mattress, skin tingling and it’s hard to breath, it is, heart pounding too fast against his ribs. He watches the man who watches him with his head tilted and he’s too far to discern any of his features except his eyes, shining oddly in the dim light of the room and that’s it, he thinks, that’s what made him think of a beast. The fear is still there, curled in his belly, cold against his spine and yet he doesn’t feel like running. He knows this feeling, this fascination; almost a dare, really, a dare with life, staring at the point of a needle.

“Look, I need your help. I’m on tonight and I can’t, I can’t go like this.”

“And?”

“You sure you have nothing? Not even quaaludes? Everyone got’em.”

“I’m not everyone.”

“Yeah, figures.”

There’s an expectant silence, and if Minhyuk doesn’t look at the man it’s like he’s not there, swallowed by the dark. No sound comes from him, and Minhyuk stares up at the ceiling, feeling himself drift again, nausea slowly growing as his body seems to sink into the mattress.  

“I may have something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Just. Wait here.”

“Yeah. Not going anywhere.”

Minhyuk watches as the man gets up and leave the room, bare feet silent on the wooden floor. He closes his eyes then, a shiver going through him as he abandons himself to the craving.

 

**9.**

The blade sinks easily into his arm, without pain. Hyungwon presses on the flesh until blood pearls on its surface, thick and darkened, a pungent smell wafting from the wound. Something of death and decay and he’s quick to let the blood drop into a glass where it remains in a clot, too thick to espouse the shape of the vial. Mixed with water it finally flows again and Hyungwon watches, tilting the glass and the blood swirls and moves as it did long ago but not anymore, not anymore.

“Here. Drink this.”

“The fuck is it?”

“You want something to get you going, yeah? This will do.”

Minhyuk takes the glass from him, smelling suspiciously at the liquid and he frowns, nose scrunching up as Hyungwon stares.

“It stinks.”

“Yeah, and?”

Maybe he takes it as a challenge, the glint in Hyungwon’s eyes, his half-smile. Minhyuk stares, face hardening, and then he downs the drink in one gulp and Hyungwon watches as his throat bobs, watches as disgust blooms on his face, watches as his eyes fall shut and he brings the glass back down.

“Fuck, this taste like – ah –”

Hyungwon watches as the man folds on himself, arms crossing over his belly, he watches and he listens and he hears – grass growing outside, low and faint, rats scurrying in the sewers where water flows, flows like the blood in diseased veins and the heart beating and beating and beating too fast against brittle bones, electricity flashing from synapses and the blood and the heart and a dog barking and the rats and the grass and the wind howling outside and inside of himself where everything is quiet, quiet, ashes and dust and breaths sealed in calcified lungs, clotted blood like treacle in empty veins, remains of nothing in an empty graveyard and Hyungwon watches and he listens and he hears the blood and the heart and the electricity flashing from synapses and he needs a taste, he needs a taste.

The man collapses backwards on the bed, eyes open, pupils blown and there’s sweat on his skin, soft moans falling from his lips as he twists there, fingers gripping at his chest, at his throat, dipping into his mouth and Hyungwon leans in, looms over the man, brushing dirty hair back from dark eyes, hand on his throat and the pulse beating there, beating under his fingers and he dips closer, closer still until he’s a breath away, a breath away, a breath away.

He licks the side of the kid’s neck, tastes the salt on his skin and the blood pulsing underneath and Minhyuk shudders, arches off the bed with a soft moan as Hyungwon grips his jaw, tilts his head back and this is it, the edge; the abyss stirs, swallowing Hyungwon’s mind whole until he’s only hunger, something naked and raw and he has to devour, he has to, there is only this, he’s only claws and teeth and hunger and he sinks fangs into the flesh; the kid lets out a whimper, something weak and surrendered that has the abyss grow and the blood pearls on the skin, taste dark and poisoned and Hyungwon laps at it, teases the wound with his tongue and he wants more, he wants more. The kid grabs at his shoulders, nails sinking into dead flesh, cold, cold like the grave moans falling from his lips and there’s desire in his blood, dark, dark like the abyss and Hyungwon bites again, and again, and the blood flows and he tastes himself, too, sticky and warm in his throat and it’s life and it’s death and it’s life and it’s death.

And there’s hands in his hair, pulling, pulling upwards and blood dripping down his chin, feverish eyes boring into his and a kiss, a kiss tasting like metal in his jaw and it’s life, it’s life and he needs more, he needs more. Hyungwon embraces the warm body, pulls it against his own as he listens to the halting breaths and the punched-out moans and the kid kisses him again, with the same kind of hunger, the same kind of lust and it’s life that he seeks but Hyungwon has none to give, none to give yet he devours him all the same, licks at his mouth, hands roaming over the heaving chest and the warm skin of his sides and Hyungwon would pull him inside himself if he could, behind his ribs where he could breath warmth in his cold emptiness and the kiss deepens, a knee nudging between his thighs blood on the white sheets and the rats in the sewers and the water that flows, flows, flows until it is all he hears as his mind is pulled back from the abyss and if he could feel pain it would hurt.

He breaks the kiss, pulling himself back and away, watching the little god spread out on the white sheets, blood covering his neck and chest, soaking into his shirt, dirty hair stuck to his sweaty brow. Hyungwon should finish him, he knows, but he can’t; something’s holding him back, something of the fascination he’d felt, staring at him in a dark basement and he needs him to sing again, he needs him to charm the beast he found there; Minhyuk’s a pied piper, and he’s the rats scurrying into the river.

 

**10.**

“What was it?”

“What?”

“What did you give me?”

Hyungwon glances at Minhyuk, seated next to him in the backseat of the taxi driving them to the live-house. Head tilted back, eyes closed, and Hyungwon’s gaze following the lines of his throat to the dip of his collarbones. Hyungwon cleaned him up, dressed him, left him laying on his bed until the edged passed, until he was himself again, until he opened his eyes on a new night and the roars had turned to whispers in his veins.

“Something old.”

“I heard things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Voices, I don’t know.”

“What were there saying?”

“No idea. I don’t think it was a language I spoke. But they were, I don’t know. Sad.”

Ghosts, Hyungwon could tell him, ghosts in his blood spinning wind from their ghastly fingers, inhabiting the empty plains of his mind; memories from a time where the world was still fire and ice. And it used to be fine and it used to be easy, and the hunger was still a child back then, easily satisfied and he was a mist slipping in through a cracked window and _I come to find you and you’re asleep and it’s easy, teeth and claws and blood on white sheets_ _and I slip out and I ride on the wind, a bird with feathery wings and I don’t have a skin and I don’t have a soul and it’s easy, I am carried away, carried away and I fall like a stone and I have four legs and a nose on the ground and I run through forests and the earth is damp under my feet and I don’t have a skin and I don’t have a soul but I can steal, fangs dipping in tender flesh and the blood pulsing under the surface and the blood on the skin the blood on the skin and the hunger grows and it’s not a child anymore, it’s not and the forests are gone and the wind is heavy with fog and I’m not a bird anymore, I have four legs and a nose on the ground and I’m scurrying past in sewers and slipping in through holes in the walls and you’re asleep and it’s easy to steal but the blood in my veins doesn’t flow for long enough and I must feed again, feed again scurrying past nose on the ground and the earth is hard and dry under my feet and sometimes I miss the sun but I am dead under the moon and so I slip in and slip out again and I don’t leave a trail, I don’t, I’m the wind and the night and I don’t have a skin, I don’t have a soul and you must stay awake, you must stay awake._

“I felt like in a trance, and I don’t remember much, but I sort of, I want more, yeah? It did something to my brain and now I see everything.”

“You see everything?”

“Yeah, I see you and I see past you and I see the pavement and I know how the earth feels like underneath, I have memories that aren’t mine and they’re fading but I know how the wind used to feel and I know how to see in the dark and everything’s sharper, everything’s in relief.”

Hyungwon closes his eyes, listening to the man next to him, looking for the traces of himself he left inside him. And it’s there, in the hitch of his beating heart, in the cold of his breaths, in the poisoned blood of his veins.

“We’re here.”

And they are, the car slowing to a stop past the queue outside the venue. Minhyuk comes out first, a little unsteady on his legs, feverish eyes searching the inside of the car for the tall silhouette of Hyungwon, exiting after him.

“I’ll see you inside, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“My name’s Minhyuk, by the way.”

“I know. I’m Hyungwon.”

A smile, something almost child-like looking out of place on a body so wrecked, and Minhyuk disappears through a back door. Hyungwon remains still, under the light rain that started to fall, and if he closes his eyes he can still hear him, still see him, still feel him.

 

**11.**

There’s something different. It’s in the air, in the alcohol, in the pills he took before going on stage. It’s vibrating in him, something in his blood and if he closes his eyes he can still see. He steps on something broken and glass crunches under his foot, loud as thunder; the notes of the bass echo in his chest as he takes up the mic, body twisting as if possessed and _oh, I been dirt, but I don’t care, I been dirt, but I don’t care cause I’m burning inside_ and the crowd moves with him and he can hear, he can hear the hearts beating in their cages, the bodies swaying, the pulse, the pulse of the beast moving here every night; he can feel the weights of the eyes on him, smell their sweat and their arousal, _I’m just a-yearning inside and I’m the fire of life, yeah alright, oh I’ve been hurt but I don’t care_ and there’s one he doesn’t hear, one he doesn’t hear but he feels him all the same and Minhyuk opens his eyes, searching, and he’s here, here at the edge of the crowd and so it’s for him that he sings, too warm under his skin, lips too close to the mic, distorted guitars drowning his ears _do you feel it? Said do you feel it when you touch me? There’s a fire, well, it’s a fire, now, s’just a bit of burning inside, just a little burning_ and the man stands alone, at the edge, at the edge of everything and he’s made of shadows but he doesn’t have one of his own and Minhyuk can’t hear, Minhyuk can’t hear his beating heart _and do you feel it? Said do you feel it when you touch me?_

He sways, eyes closed, a hand on his throat, fingers in his mouth and he’s dissolving, dissolving into the crowd that sways with him, that wants him, wants to devour him; the air’s warm and sticky and there’s metal in his jaw and a memory, a memory of blood and pain and pleasure too and it’s him, it’s him and so he opens his eyes again, searching and the man is still there, still watching, eyes dark, flickering on the edge and he’s not really there, he’s not really there _and do you feel it? Said do you feel it when you touch me?_ And Minhyuk stares at him, hands on his throat, down, down over his collarbones and his pale chest, grazing the ribs and the warm flesh of his sides, down, down to his hips and past his navel _and do you feel it when you touch me?_

_Do you feel it when_

_you_

_cut me?_

_But there’s a fire_

_But there’s a fire_

_Just burning_

_Just a burning_

_Inside_

And then, then there’s nothing.

 

**12.**

“What happened?”

“You fainted on stage.”

Minhyuk opens his eyes and he knows the ceiling, dark stains of humidity and peeling paint, and he knows the feel of the sofa under his back; he ended up here often enough. He can hear the music wafting from upstairs, a band playing something loud and fast pounding in his head. But he feels weak, too weak, limbs filled with lead, impossible to lift.

There’s Hyungwon, seated next to him near his feet, a faint expression of disgust on his features as he surveys the room.

“Hey, hey. Look at me.”

Hyungwon turns and his eyes reflect no light; Minhyuk stares, stares until a wave of nausea has him curling up on himself, sweat pearling on his skin and the comedown is worse than anything else he’s experienced; his senses are cut off, he’s deaf and numb, mind closed off and he hates it, he hates it.

“Hey, Hyungwon? Look, I need more, I need more of whatever that was. I could see for miles, and now I’m blind.”

He struggles to sit up and Hyungwon is still staring, his face a mask, dark eyes, dark eyes that fit all of him and Minhyuk feels a pull, deep in his belly, something he has no control over, something of the memories sleeping in his mind, memories that aren’t his and yet he misses them as they’re fading and fading and fading.

Minhyuk grabs Hyungwon’s wrist then and the flesh is cold, so cold under his fingers that he almost recoils but Hyungwon is staring at his hand there, at his bony fingers, almost too dark against his ghastly skin and so he leaves them there, tightening his grip.

“Can you give it to me?”

Hyungwon’s eyes snap to his face and there’s centuries lying there; Minhyuk is scared, then, something with claws sinking in his belly and he falls back, arms draping over his middle as he suppresses a shiver. He hadn’t noticed the room was this cold, hadn’t noticed the sudden silence falling over them, hadn’t noticed the smell lingering there, something of earth and decay. The longer he stares at the man seated there on the sunken couch, the more alien that man feels, as if Minhyuk was only looking at an idea of what a man should be. And yet he still stares, tilting his head, looking for the imperfections, cracks in the mask that might betray what lies underneath. He finds none.

But the man blinks and something shifts; he seems more solid, then, as if he had only suffered a temporary lapse in the fabric of his reality, as if he had forgotten himself, let his flesh dissolve in the dust and the cold.

“I can’t.”

“Why not? What was it?”

There’s a fugitive smile on the man’s lips and Minhyuk has the distinct feeling that he knows how they taste, he knows them, knows their shape and the cold they breathed into him.

“Can I kiss you?”

“What?”

“Kiss you.”

Hyungwon laughs, something dry and joyless as he shakes his head.

“No, certainly not.”

Though he seems thoughtful, then, watching Minhyuk with a tilted head, watching his blood-shot eyes and his sunken cheeks, watching his collarbones where they peek from his gaping shirt, watching the skin raised there, goosebumps Minhyuk doesn’t feel blooming with each breath that he takes.

“If I give you what you want…”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll just keep wanting.”

“I’m already an addict. You can’t make it worse.”

This smile again, small and knowing, and Minhyuk feels as if he’s missing something, missing something obvious. But he doesn’t care, he doesn’t and he stares as Hyungwon shifts, leaning closer, and his smile his made of wolf teeth but his eyes are forever sad.

“Close your eyes.”

Minhyuk does, and an icy hand presses over his eyelids, leaning his head back. He can feel him, close, so close and yet there is no warmth, no breath on his skin, only glacial fingers and a buried instinct of flight. But he stays, he stays until fingers press at his mouth and he obediently parts his lips. It’s like sucking on ice but they warm fast and there’s something sliding down his throat, sick and sultry and the taste, like iron on his tongue, iron and something dark, something dead and slithering that he forces down before nausea can overtake him. He swallows and then, then it starts.

He doesn’t need the hand to push him back anymore as he falls, falls, falls like a stone through dirty floors and hard pavement; through the earth, the earth underneath until molten lava fills his mouth and he’s burning, he is, he’s burning and dying but he’s alive, so alive; he can see despite his closed eyes, see the man on the couch with his hand over his eyelids, see the room around them, each individual particle of dust floating in the air, each particle of light and there’s colors he’s never known before. He can hear, too, the hundred of heartbeats upstairs, the stomping feet and syncopated breaths, he can hear the low thrum of the music and the voice of the singer, _I go now, I go now, I pulsate; I’ll be all fine, I’ll be all fine_ – and desire blooms within him; he needs to devour, he needs the breaths and the hearts and the voice but it’s not him, it’s not him, this hunger isn’t his and yet he swallows more, more from the fingers in his mouth but it’s far from enough and so he grips the man looming over him as he lets go, the breaths and the hearts and the voice, _come and take me, come and take me I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive, I’ll stick it out I’ll be all fine_ and the man kisses him and Minhyuk’s cold and he’s burning and the thoughts in his head aren’t his, the memories aren’t his and he’s –

– _lapping at the wound like a cat and the man laughs and he coughs and he doesn’t know he’s dying and the cat turns into a wolf ripping the flesh breaking the neck crushing the ribs to the heart the heart the heart still beating still beating pumping blood and there’s not enough there’s never enough running on the wind I’m a bird and I’m a wolf and I’m a shadow, a mist through the window and the man laughs he doesn’t know he’s dying I eat I eat but I’m never full and I need somebody, I need somebody, cold so cold always cold; there’s never enough it’s been so long, so long sometimes I don’t remember my name and so I find a new one it’s been so long he’s laughing he’s laughing and I lick the wound like a cat and he likes it he does but the pleasure I give I take back and I need somebody warm how long has it been? how long has it been, I’m_ –

– crying, tears on his face and Hyungwon laps at them like a cat and he’s cold, so cold. Minhyuk embraces him, hugs him to his chest where it’s warm and the man buries his face in his neck, against his pulse; Minhyuk knows the want pulling at him, he does, and so he lets him, baring his throat and something nips at his flesh, breaks the skin there, white hot needles in his throat and a shiver, a shiver that rips a moan from his chest as warmth pours from the wound, lapped up and swallowed before any drop is lost. And Minhyuk feels, Minhyuk feels everything too deeply; the hands roaming his sides, the body so cold against his burning one, so cold and yet he wants more, always wants more, and he tugs at Hyungwon’s hair, tugs at his clothes, buries harsh fingers in his flesh until Hyungwon kisses him again, mouth slick with what Minhyuk knows is his own blood and yet he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care.

He’s the light through the window and the dust in the air, he’s the ashes on his tongue and he sees all, the hands on his skin, the mouth devouring him, the blood of his veins on the other’s lips and his mind bursts, scattered to each corners; he’s only nerves and blood and flesh and it’s too much, too much, and _the pleasure I give I take back_ and it’s a pain like no other but it’s bliss like no other and he’s hard, straining against his pants, sweat and blood and spit and his hands find his cock and he’s fisting himself quick and erratic, punched-out moans falling from his lips and the monster, the monster above him swallows each and every one of them, swallows the blood from his wounds and the salt on his skin and it’s too much, it’s too much.

“Hyungwon, ah, please.”

The monster tilts his head and he’s beautiful, he is, lips painted red and a glint in his dark eyes that didn’t use to be there and Minhyuk stares, stares as he touches himself until Hyungwon presses his hand to his mouth and Minhyuk can feel the oozing cuts on the fingers with the tip of his tongue and that’s it, that’s what he needs and so he closes his eyes, sucking the fingers into his mouth as Hyungwon pushes his hands back and off himself, replacing them with his own. And his pace is slow and languid, pushing Minhyuk to the edge but never over and Minhyuk whines, something low and throaty as a shiver goes through him and he’s close but it’s not enough, not enough.

He buckles his hips then, fucking up into Hyungwon’s fist as he opens his eyes and the man is watching him with fascination, pushing his fingers further down Minhyuk’s throat and he sucks on them as if he was sucking on a hard cock, swirling his tongue over the cuts there, and each time he swallows he loses yet another piece of his mind. And Hyungwon dips his head then, again finding the pulse at the base of his throat, again piercing the soft skin there and Minhyuk laughs and coughs and he doesn’t know he’s dying; Hyungwon’s hands tighten up as his pace quickens, a jolt shooting up Minhyuk’s spine as he drowns, blood turning into lava and it’s pure want that he feels, a hunger like no other and the monster is kissing him, he is, iron and fire and the taste is dark dark dark and he’s coming, he’s coming in white spurts over the cold fingers, over his tense abdomen and his heaving chest and it’s good, so good, but the pleasure he gives he takes back and Minhyuk’s sinking, Minhyuk’s sinking and the earth underneath is hard and unforgiving.

**13.**

Minhyuk stays buried in that dark place. Under fallen leaves and damp earth, where the monster always finds him. And he wants more, he always wants more. He wants the sight and the remembrance and the power he feels coursing through his veins as he laps at the wounds on the fingers. He’s alive, then, alive as he’s never been and at night the crowd is entranced, swallowing his voice and the languid gestures of his body and they want more, too, they want more. A little god, he is, put upon an altar of smoke and ashes and he sees all, all that there is and he sees the eyes, over the head of the crowd, the eyes that bear no light. It’s for them that he sings and there’s something desperate in his voice, something raw of desire and pain and ecstasy.

But the comedown always flares, and then, then he is dead. No light can touch him, no sound can reach him; he’s blind and mute and his body spasms against white sheets, against the cold flesh he came to know so well. The monster seeks warmth, always, the warmth from his flesh and his blood and Minhyuk gives it to him willingly, gives him everything and maybe it’s love and maybe it’s not and maybe he doesn’t know he’s dying, cats turning into wolves turning into the mist in his lungs. Minhyuk is buried, under fallen leaves and damp earth, and the monster always finds him.

 

**14.**

But there’s so much he can take. The candle burns until there is no more light to give.

 

**15.**

Hyungwon finds him in the bathtub, and everything’s cold. The air filling the room, the water, the body, the body, the body. He cannot hear the heart anymore, this heart he desired so much, this heart he had in another way. He cannot hear the blood rush through the veins, cannot hear the breaths stuck in the lungs, cannot hear the electric flashes of the synapses. Hyungwon stares at the opened eyes, at the pale skin, too pale, too pale, and ever so slowly he reaches a hand to the wet hair, pushes them back, traces the ridge of the nose and the parted lips. Something clenches in him, something it took him a thousand years to feel and he sinks to his knees on the wet floor.

He cradles the perfect head to his chest, water sipping into his clothes as so many tears he cannot shed and he stays there, frenzied words he never said falling from his lips, losing themselves in the golden hair and he knew it was coming, he knew it, annihilation the only issue and maybe it should be mutual, he thinks, maybe this is enough, and the abyss within him rears and stirs, swallowing yet more of him as he slowly rocks back and forth, arms wrapped around the body stiffening under his touch.

He stays there for hours, kneeling in the dimly lit bathroom, and there’s a voice telling him it isn’t too late, it isn’t, but the curse he bears he doesn’t wish it on anyone else and thus he lifts the cold flesh in his arms, laying it out on the sheets it used to warm. He finds clothes, sits at the head of the bed where he gently brushes Minhyuk’s hair until the strands are silky under his touch. And then he stays, staring, as slowly the sun rises behind his windows.

The black out curtains are firmly in place and Hyungwon gazes at his artificial darkness, mirroring the pit growing in him and he’s tired, so tired. He lays down next to the body, fingers finding the dead hand as he curls up against the chest that will not rise anymore, against the heart that will not beat, never again. He’s cold, so cold, a freezing wind biting at him and maybe death is contagious, maybe this is the end, for him, too. Loss was never so keenly felt, and loneliness devours him, tears his muscles, crushes his bones; if he had a heart he would rip it out, watch it bleed out on the white sheets of Minhyuk’s shroud.

The night is empty; there is no place to go anymore.

 

**16.**

And so Hyungwon sits on the grave, watching the line of light on the horizon, colors he didn’t know he had missed blooming, spilling over the hills and he knows they will reach him soon. But he doesn’t move, hands buried in fresh earth, fallen leaves in his hair and for once he feels something other than hunger. There’s peace, in waiting for the end. The abyss within him recedes as the light grows and warmth spreads in his veins. He closes his eyes then, abstract shapes dancing on his eyelids.

There’s a shuffle behind him, a twig snapping underfoot and someone sits down at his side, someone as cold as he is, someone he’d missed as much as the colors from the rising sun. Minhyuk puts his head on his shoulder and he’s weightless, weightless and soft, so soft.

“Are you really there?”

Minhyuk shrugs and kisses the side of his neck, kisses his temple and his cheekbone, kisses his mouth and each one of his closed eyes and he has the soft touch of a summer breeze.

“Does it matter?”

Hyungwon shakes his head, finds Minhyuk’s hand to hold in his and opens his eyes, watching as the sun yet still rises.

“Will you stay awake with me?”

“Yes. You’ve been alone for far too long.”

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything, except the void.”

“Do you remember me?”

Hyungwon nods, shifting slightly to accommodate the body against his and he’s warming, he is, a slow fire coursing on his skin.

“I do. You were shining too bright and it hurt my eyes. You were a little god.”

“Did you love me?”

“You know, I don’t have a soul like you do. But if I had one, it would be yours.”

Minhyuk smiles and his eyes are bright, his skin golden, and he looks strong as he never did in life. There’s something new in him, something settled, the feverish frenzy of his days finally appeased.

“It’s time to go.”

“You came to find me.”

“I did.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Does it now?”

Hyungwon looks down at his skin, rays of light painting shadows on his forearms, on the hands he lifts to the sun. There is no pain to be had, only a gentle warmth spreading in his being, thawing the breath in his lungs, the ice in his veins and he remembers, then, he remembers everything.

“No, it doesn’t.”

There’s a thousand years’ worth of tears in his eyes and Minhyuk pulls him to his chest where it’s safe. They watch the sunrise paint gold on their skin, feel a soft breeze rising and Hyungwon knows it is for him. He lets himself be cradled, a precious thing, soft earth and fallen leaves and ashes on the wind.

 

**17.**

There’s an unmarked grave up in the hills, far from the city. There is no path to reach it and the grass is lush there, the flowers always in bloom. When the sun rises there’s soft shadows dancing amongst the blades, soft leaves fluttering in the breeze. It may feel as if they’re singing, sometimes, gentle words lost to the wind. Often animals idle there, wolves weary from the hunt, harvest mice weaving nests out of the grass. The wind is warm, the earth soft. A resting place, a final gift from death.

_(You were cold, always so cold. There was never enough and it has been so long, so long sometimes you didn’t remember your name and so you found a new one and rode on the wind, a bird with feathery wings, carried away falling like a stone and you were a wolf running through the forest, damp earth under your feet and you didn’t have a skin, you didn’t have a soul you were the wind and the night and the breeze through the window, you were the claws ripping the flesh crushing the ribs to the heart still beating, still beating, you were dead under the moon and yet there was no rest for you, no peace to be had and it has been so long and you were so cold, a shadow under the streetlights and you missed the sun and the warmth and the night was your home and what did you do? What did you do to deserve this, lapping at the wound like a cat, a cat turning into a wolf and a shadow, a mist through the window so cold, always so cold you need somebody warm somebody to stay awake with you, please, you say, stay awake, stay awake with me._

_It’s fine, now._

_There’s soft earth and fallen leaves, white bones buried in the soil and they loved you, they loved you._

_You can rest, now._

_You have a name.)_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> As usual you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlanquetteAO3) and [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/Blanq), or get me a [coffee](https://ko-fi.com/blanquetteao3).


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